--Blogged by Brad Friedman from on the road..
(As mentioned in previous items, I'm now on the road, and doing my best to keep up while moving. So apologies for the terse reports for the moments, as I continue to roll and have limited time online.)

LATEST OUT OF NH: Disparities being found during first day of ballot hand counts, in many wards, many candidates. Diebold op-scan memory cards unaccounted for at the moment, SoS doesn't track them after elections, doesn't track error reports during elections. LHS Associates handles all of it instead, according to reports on the ground. Public records request reveals hundreds of ballots in one area scanned as blank due to incorrect ink used on ballots, and other problems on LHS problem report forms.

this shizzz is getting out of control. For a country that preached "Democracy" we have a really F-ed up way of practicing it....

Democracy? more like Hypocrisy

Click to expand...

We've taken a few steps backwards ... no question. Why 1 company dominates the scene is scary also. The country needs to mandate some national laws so the equipement becomes somewhat standardized. That along with having to have an ID would really help the lousy process. Imagine that people stuffing a box in the 1800's was a better system...that's progress?

In 1992, investment banker Chuck Hagel, president of McCarthy & Co, became chairman of AIS. Hagel, who had been touted as a possible Senate candidate in 1993, was again on the list of likely GOP contenders heading into the 1996 contest. In January of 1995, while still chairman of ES&S, Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald that he would likely make a decision by mid-March of 1995. On March 15, according to a letter provided by Hagel's Senate staff, he resigned from the AIS board, noting that he intended to announce his candidacy. A few days later, he did just that.

A little less than eight months after steppind down as director of AIS, Hagel surprised national pundits and defied early polls by defeating Benjamin Nelson, the state's popular former governor. It was Hagel's first try for public office. Nebraska elections officials told The Hill that machines made by AIS probably tallied 85 percent of the votes cast in the 1996 vote, although Nelson never drew attention to the connection. Hagel won again in 2002, by a far healthier margin. That vote is still angrily disputed by Hagel's Democratic opponent, Charlie Matulka, who did try to make Hagel's ties to ES&S an issue in the race and who asked that state elections officials conduct a hand recount of the vote. That request was rebuffed, because Hagel's margin of victory was so large.

As might be expected, Hagel has been generously supported by his investment partners at McCarthy & Co. -- since he first ran, Hagel has received about $15,000 in campaign contributions from McCarthy & Co. executives. And Hagel still owns more than $1 million in stock in McCarthy & Co., which still owns a quarter of ES&S.

If the Republican ties at Diebold and ES&S aren't enough to cause concern, argues election reform activist Bev Harris, the companies' past performances and current practices should be. Harris is author of Black Box Voting, and the woman behind the BlackBoxVoting.com web site.